La chambre de la Polaire
April 9, 2009 · Print This Article
Thank you, Pam, for sending me the link to La Chambre de la Polaire, a gorgeous website dedicated to Polaire!
www.geocities.com/Paris/Lights/8473/polaire.html
The pictures of Polaire are stunning, and showcase her famously minuscule waist. If you’ve ever wondered why a small waist is called a “wasp-waist”, and what it would look like, this website is for you! It looks like the photographs were all taken at one sitting — I would guess that they were taken around 1902, when she made her first major appearance on stage (as Claudine, the 16 year old schoolgirl created by Colette). Polaire would have been 28 years old then, and Colette 29, when together, the women brought Claudine to life.
Polaire’s lingerie is sumptuously, sensuously frothy and lacy. The photographs are faded, of course, and not in good focus, as if they’ve been enlarged from very small originals. But it looks like her corset laces up at the front, which is interesting — I thought the French style was to lace up at the back? In one photograph she kneels on a chair, coquettishly showing a fair bit of stockinged leg, and giving us a good view of wonderful lace-up boots, tied at the top with a satin ribbon bow.
If you look carefully at the fourth photograph, where she’s facing away from the camera, you can see a shadow on the left of her waist and bust, as if her true, more generous silhouette has been erased. I’m sure Polaire’s waist wasn’t really as tiny as it appears in the photographs. There doesn’t seem to be anything else on the website, other than the photographs, but they are beautiful.
I love this desperately erotic description of Polaire on Wikipedia:
“Polaire! The agitating and agitated Polaire! The tiny slip of a woman that you know, with the waist slender to the point of pain, of screaming out loud, of breaking in two, in a spasmically tight bodice, the prettiest slimness … And, under the aureole of an extravagant masher’s hat, orange and plumed with iris leaves, the great voracious mouth, the immense black eyes, ringed, bruised, discoloured, the incandescence of her pupils, the bewildered nocturnal hair, the phosphorus, the sulphur, the red pepper of that ghoulish, Salome-like face, the agitating and agitated Polaire!”
How delightful that you gave me credit for giving you direction. Not everyone is so generous.
My opinon of the photos:
I’ve looked at a lot of antique photos and have concluded that if the props are the same from pic to pic,they were taken at one setting;usually,at least 6 were taken at a time. I’d say the 4th,5th and 8th from the left are from the same sitting. Yes,I agree that these look modified. (I have a gorgeous pic of her in which,if you look closely,you can see that her waistline was altered.) I love how deliciously naughty and nearly demonic she looks in them. I bet she broke a lot of hearts.
I’ll look over the pics and see if I can figure out more about them. Yes,I am that compulsive over the Divine Melle P.
The quote is by Jean Lorrain,a homosexual jounalist who was also friends with Colette and Willy. He wrote a very spiteful book about their marraige and said many rude things. I wish I could read French ! I bet it’s juicy !
Lorrain is writing of her perfomance when she was a danseuse epileptique/gommeuse. Rae Beth Gordon has written about Polaire in articles and in a book called’”Why the French Love jerry lewis’. I reccommend you look up her stuff. She’s knowledgeable and sheds light on a facinating time in history and helped me to understand Polaire in the perspective of her era.
The pic 2nd from the left was shot by Nadar on 2-2-1897 so she was 23-ish. I’m still looking for the others….
Hello Sarah, Vespera and Pam,
First of all, thank you very much for your kind comments on the site Polaire 1900. I am working on this site for several years now, and new documents are added on a regular basis (there are currently over 70 documents on the site).
To respond to Pam’s question, the site address is : http://www.polaire-1900.com/ (yes, sorry, the site is in French only, but I am thinking of translating some pages into English, with the help of an american friend).
I also would like to respond to Sarah, who writes that “the Polaire website very firmly rejects any unseemly speculation about Polaire’s relationship with Colette, and puts all the “blame” on poor Colette…”. Well, I do not reject the possibility of a love relationship between Polaire and Colette on principle (and put no blame on Colette).
I only stress the fact that (as far as I know) none of Colette’s biographers suggests the possibility of such a relationship. And that, in a passage of her diary quoted in Colette’s book “Lettres au Petit Corsaire”, Renée Hamon writes that Colette told her that she had once expressed to Polaire her desire to make love with her, but that Polaire had refused.
And Polaire herself clearly rejects this possibility when she writes in her autobiography (“Polaire par elle-même”, published in 1933), page 123 : “Dire que tant de légendes ont pu s’échafauder sur moi, alors que je n’ai jamais pu comprendre les mœurs anormales !…” (“When I think to all the legends that have been written about me, whereas I have never understood abnormal behaviours”). I also underline (and give examples of) the fact that Polaire never rejected anyone on account of his/her sexual behaviour.
Well, I don’t speak English as well as I would like to, but I hope that this clarifies my comment on this subject on the website.
And do you know the book “La Folie Polaire” (The Polaire Madness) that was published in France in 2007? Written par Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée, this book is a novel including accurate biographical informations on Polaire. The story is that of a man who begins to collect items on Polaire and who is gradually convinced that she is still alive. He is from time to time the witness of events that occured in Polaire’s real life. The book is in French (sorry!) but with about 50 photographs of Polaire. This book is available on the Internet.
And if you are looking for information on Polaire, please feel free to email me.